Nine Miles of New Bike Lanes Coming to Queens

It may seem like Manhattan and Brooklyn have been receiving the lion’s share of bike-related privileges, but Queens residents have made it clear that they enjoy biking too, dammit! Luckily, the Department of Transportation has responded to the requests of Long Island City and Sunnyside cyclists and are poised to create nine new miles of bike lanes in the nabes by the end of 2013. Most of the additional lanes will be in LIC, including some of the new ones created around the currently in-progress Hunters Point South affordable housing complex.

According to LIC Post, the additional lanes will bring the total amount of bike lanes in Sunnyside, Woodside and Long Island City to 21 miles. The hope is that the new lanes will spur the adoption of biking in the area, which is served primarily by just one train line, the 7, as an alternative mode of transportation. The lanes will also provide a safer way for bike commuters to travel from east to west between the East River Ferry and Sunnyside, and north to south from the Pulaski Bridge to Astoria. The new routes will also serve as a passageway to Greenpoint, Brooklyn across the Pulaski Bridge.

The decision to implement the new lanes were surrounded by murmurings that the Citi Bike program would also be coming to Western Queens by the end of the year but for now, the DOT has been firm in saying that there is no set timeline for that to happen yet.